boat became stiff from the cold, there was no difficulty in warming it to soften the material when necessary. Halkett boats were likewise taken on the subsequent expedition that was sent to search for Franklin, during which they were successfully used for fishing. In 1851 French explorer Joseph René Bellot mounted another expedition to find Franklin, sponsored by Franklin's wife. Bellot took a Halkett boat-cloak on the journey, noting in his journal that it was "of immense value in a country where the want of wood renders it impossible to form any sort of raft". Bellot's expedition was unable to locate Franklin, and it was not until 1853 that an expedition led by Rae (equipped with "two beautiful Halkett boats") located a group of Inuit who recounted seeing men dragging a boat four years earlier, and later finding their bodies. Commercial failure Despite being promoted as ideal for lake-fishing and duck-shooting, and being exhibited in the Great Exhibition of 1851, Halkett's boat designs were not commercially successful and never entered general use outside the specialised field of Canadian exploration. Later promoted to Captain, Halkett died on 23 March 1885, aged 65, and the manufacture of his boat designs was abandoned. John Rae gave his boat from the 1853 expedition to a Miss Peace of Kirkwall, and it lay forgotten on the rafters of a Kirkwall woodyard. It was identified and recovered many years later, and is now displayed in the Stromness Museum at Orkney. A second surviving example is held in the Hudson's Bay Company Museum Collection at the Manitoba Museum. References Notes References Arctic exploration vessels Inflatable boats Rubber products